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Mark David Chapman parole denied: read the entire hearing transcript

MArk David Chapman

This June 1, 2013, photo was provided by the state prison system shows Mark David Chapman at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, N.Y. Chapman, who killed John Lennon in 1980, was denied release from prison in his eighth appearance before a parole board, New York corrections officials said Friday, Aug. 22, 2012. Chapman shot Lennon in December 1980 outside the Manhattan apartment building where the former Beatle lived. He was sentenced in 1981 to 20 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder. (AP Photo/New York State Department of Corrections)
(AP)

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Mark David Chapman told a New York state parole board this month that he murdered former Beatle John Lennon in 1980 because Chapman's life had sunk into a depressed state.

"I was drinking," Chapman told the parole board in an Aug. 20 hearing at Wende Correctional Facility. "I just saw that as my way out, you know, a lazy way out of my doldrums. It was a horrible decision, but I knew what I was doing. There was no question about it."

State prison officials released a transcript of Chapman's parole hearing this afternoon. The board denied him parole for the eighth time for murdering Lennon in December 1980 outside Lennon's New York City apartment.

A full transcript of the hearing, with Lennon's name redacted, is below.

Chapman, 59, was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. He killed Lennon because he wanted notoriety, he said.

"I was confused," Chapman told the board. "I needed a lot of attention at that time, and I took it out on him... That bright light of fame, of infamy, notoriety was there."

He planned the murder for three months, flying multiple times from his home in Hawaii to New York City, he said. He sold his father-in-law's Norman Rockwell painting to pay for his airfare and hotel, he said.

He told his wife he was going to New York to write a children's book, Chapman told the board.

Chapman hasn't granted a media interview in 24 years, he said.

"And believe me, they come," he said. "It's not my interest anymore at all. I am interested in one thing only and that's ministering to prisoners."

Chapman said he'd felt left out since he was a child. He remembers seeing a picture of Lennon and thinking, "What would happen if I killed him? I remember that, and then the idea just avalanched on me that this is something I am going to have to do. It grabbed ahold of me and wouldn't let go."

Chapman told the board he'd gotten the bullets for his gun from a police officer in Atlanta who was a friend. The officer didn't know what Chapman intended to do, he said.

"I told him I couldn't get bullets in New York, which is true at the time and still is," Chapman said. "I told him I had the gun but I couldn't get bullets, and I needed protection while I was in New York. He gave me five bullets... I got the bullets from a police officer, ironically."